Jonas WisserToday's small friends are a coy northern mockingbird with cold feet and an American goldfinch who refuses to let a possible source of food go unexplored.
Erik@jwisser What’s your process for these? Do you take fresh pictures each morning and choose which to post? Process a bunch at once and dole them out a few at a time?
@edebill Every morning just before dawn I refill the feeders and the birdbath, leaving Merlin running if weather allows to see what's in the neighborhood. Then I sit at the window with my camera until other responsibilities—usually work—force me away.
I import my photos each morning, although sometimes the batch includes photos from later in the previous day, and then select and adjust the best (or my favorites) to post. Almost everything I post is from the same morning.
@edebill Pretty much my entire life, I've slept in as late as school or work would allow. I always thought of myself as a late riser.
The first week I put out food and filled the birdbath for the dawn chorus, I thought, "Well, this is fun. I wonder how long it will take before I go back to my old habits". I haven't yet, because there's always something new to see. :D
@jwisser It’s amazing how sleep patterns can change like that. I had something similar happen 20 years ago when I got into large format (film) landscape photography. I had to be up early to take photos as the sun came up. Somehow it has stuck all these years even though I haven’t done that type of photography in ages.
@edebill Uncommon visitors and unusual behaviors usually go to the top of the list as long as the quality is decent, along with what I think of as "Pokémon Snap" photos that include two or more species or multiple individuals.
@edebill Oh—possibly also worth mentioning that I keep a daily species list along with the first time that day each species turned up and timestamps for any notable events. For example, yesterday I had more goldfinches in the yard at once than I've ever had at this house, so there's a line that reads:
• American goldfinch (7:38; 8:02, x7)
@jwisser nice. I keep an occasional list for the day, but don’t try to quantify and only rarely note gender or maturity when it’s unusual. I’m mainly looking to answer “is it normal to have cedar waxwings this time of year?” and similar phenology type questions.
@edebill Yeah, that's mostly why I keep it as well. I've honestly considered shifting it to a spreadsheet or database or something but for now it's just daily notes in Bear. I do create it with a Shortcut though, so I can autofill some details about the date, time of dawn, etc.
